You Are As Brittle As Bark
by LionAmongTheSheep
Summary: Germany let's himself lose control, and there's only so much that Italy can take before he snaps in half.


The mind is a strange thing, really. You go through life thinking that you are in control of yourself because well, it's you, so why would you be unable to control what you think and do, right? Sometimes, though, you snap. You can even fool yourself into believing that things in life do not anger or upset you. You can tell yourself that it doesn't matter and then you can let it keep building and building until the dam breaks and you are crushed with gallons of water in the form of words. Your mind looses itself. You drown. It is as simple as such. There is no telling when it will happen. What will trigger it. How intensely and devastatingly it will happen. It will kill you.

That is what happened. Ludwig will always remember that, until he grows feeble and old and frail. Until he himself dies, and even then, he has a disturbing feeling of dread in the pits of his stomach that it will be the last thing he thinks about when that time comes. Feliciano.

It was summertime, Ludwig's favorite time of year because it was Feliciano's favorite time and there was nothing better than seeing that Italian happy. The Italian. Italy itself, personified and strikingly beautiful and cheerful and charming. Ludwig would never admit his feelings, because he was collected and he never spoke of things like that because really, he didn't know how to even bring it up. So he continued this way every day.

Friends, training partners, nations in arms together, allies. This is what Ludwig and Feliciano, Germany and Italy, were to each other. All the things that would knit them together. But even so, everyone had a breaking point and whether or not you or anyone else sees it coming is never able to be determined.

This day in particular, as Ludwig sat on the porch of his home and watched Feliciano lie in the grass and pick at the fallen leaves and ladybugs and blades of emerald grass, he found himself in an oddly dissatisfied mood. Kiku had obviously noticed, for he sat on the opposite side of the steps with his eyes closed in a serene but serious manner that said 'please leave me out of whatever is about to happen' and that's when Ludwig knew.

He was grimacing intensely. He was in one of his moods, and once again it was because of Feliciano. Italy, who was incompetent enough to be useless but not so that he was considered completely dumb. Who never had the brevity to fight for anything, be it his life of the life of his people which made Ludwig the most angry because he was a nation, and he should protect all that the duty entails. Italy, wonderstruck and innocent Italy, who was currently dirty and itchy from lying in the grass and was running languidly up to Ludwig again to place more flowers in the ever growing pile by his seated hips.

Ludwig had internal battles every day over this same thing. Feliciano is so very beautiful, so very small and kind and all he wanted was Ludwig's attention. But damn it all if that boy would ever listen.

Ludwig found himself standing before his thought war could continue, striding over to where Italy was now perched under a tree, his lithe body plopped down on a root to watch resolutely as the little ants marched up the trunk.

"Feliciano, we are supposed to be training. I've let you rest for quite some time now, so now it's time to get to work."

Feliciano looked quite ambivalent, peering up through his usual lazy gaze.

"But Ludwig, it's so hot out today. We should go inside and make some pasta and talk instead."

"You have been sitting out here for almost two hours with no issue. It is obviously not that hot. You just don't want to train."

Ludwig was losing his patience. Feliciano didn't seem to understand him, or at least was trying to outwit him so they ended up inside like many a time before. He truly was an agitating child.

"But Ludwig, I never get stronger no matter how much I train. Why do you still make me do it?"

"You never get stronger because you never do it right. If you want results you have to put in the effort, otherwise nothing will happen."

"It's too hot! I'll die!"

"_Italy, _it's time to train. I will not ask again. You will not get your way today, I am sorry."

Feliciano visibly cringed, the dejection written on his face at the use of his National name. He and Ludwig had moved past that stage long ago, now only using those names as a mother uses a child's middle name. When they are in trouble.

Ludwig, on the other hand, was not budging. He refused to let this go on. Every time they trained, every single week, four days a week, Feliciano complained and begged to not train, to not have to run or work out because his tiny body couldn't bear it. But Ludwig has seen Feliciano run, really run, and he is sure that that lithe body, small but with a runner's legs, can do anything.

"Ludwig I don't want to!"

He stood up regardless, however, and shrugged his jacket off. It really was very hot out.

"Tell me, then, how you expect to protect yourself? I'm not always going to be there to save you, you know! I honestly hope that you realize that Feliciano because you seem to think that I will always come running to help you. But what if one day I can't, huh? What will you do?"

"Ludwig, I-"

"No! You do not understand anything. Not a single thing. I still do not understand why you even formed an alliance with me if you were not planning on doing your part. You are always doing this. I ask two hours of your time on four measly days of the week and you dawdle around trying to postpone it. Do you know what's going to happen one day? You are going to go and get yourself _killed_!"

Feliciano was barely able to breathe normally at this point, tears flooding his drained and rejected face. Japan still sat on the porch, now looking on with worry and sadness in his gaze. This was the worst Ludwig has ever yelled at Feliciano.

Feliciano tried so hard to speak, really, but air was barely getting into his lungs past the quiet sobs.

"I-I'm sorry Ludwig I just-"

"Why, Italy? Why are you like this? Why can't you just _listen_ to me and do these things that I ask of you? You run like mad when England shows up but when I ask you to do this you whine and you are weak and you do _nothing_! Do you even possess a brain? Do you _want to die!?_"

Ludwig was fuming by now, fueled by nothing but the adrenaline and he stood there simply breathing heavily as he calmed, staring angrily down at the mess of an Italian.

Feliciano had never felt so ridiculed, so horrified, constricted, nothing like this feeling. He'd been told these things by many people. Nation after Nation rejected him as a formidable enemy, called him out on his antics, called him useless and dumb and all around invalidated his existence. He was okay with that. Those other nations didn't mean too much to him, really.

But Ludwig. Strong, reliable, kind Ludwig had finally said it. He said all the things that Feliciano feared more than death coming from his mouth. It was like he'd been killed, right then and there, and he didn't even look up at the other again before turning and running. Running home, forgetting his belongings, and running to escape, because if Ludwig hated him then what did he have left?

Ludwig knew, though. He knew what he'd just done. He knew that he'd just made a mistake. But he stood frozen, baffled, directionless. What would he do now? How could he fix this? It was indeed Feliciano who forgave as easily as anyone Ludwig had ever seen but even he could never forgive this. It was truly the most incredibly cruel thing he'd ever done.

He numbly ambled forward, leaning over to pick up the blue coat that laid smudged and worn over a tree root, evidence of Feliciano all over it. From the pasta stain to the little amber hairs that clung to the shoulders, it all screamed Feliciano. It was then that Ludwig cried.

It wasn't body wracking sobs, or lung constricting heaves, nor was it mindless and devastated wailing. It was a simple flow, fiery and blazing tears dripping from the porcelain chin to darken the blue of the jacket clung to his chest. It even smelled like him. Of Earth, lavender, tomatoes, and the ever lingering scent of fresh bread. Scent memory was a truly cruel thing.

There was a hand on his shoulder, soft and graceful and forgiving and when he turned to see Kiku he felt a heavier wave of guilt crash down on him.

"What do I do . . . He thinks I hate him . . ."

Ludwig whispered, but Kiku heard. Kiku always heard.

"Go to him and do not hesitate. Show him that you are dedicated to earning his forgiveness."

Ludwig just nodded, clinging to the jacket like it was the only thing keeping him tied to this life. It was gravity. Feliciano is the sun.

Then he ran. He ran because he needed to fix this because he could never in a million years imagine what life would be like without pasta and fresh sauce, without finding Feliciano in his bed every morning, without flowers and hugs and Italian songs sung in the sunshine and breezy days when they would lie on the porch with gelato and laugh. It would never be okay again without Feliciano.

He ran until he approached the vine covered villa with its big wooden door and tomato garden and tiny white flag stuck in the dirt by the door, and he was so out of breath, but couldn't care. He didn't have time to.

It was always open.

When Ludwig entered, the air smelled of sweat and dust and not at all like the warm food and burning firewood that usually permeated the very soul of the home. It was dark, and the shadows of the furniture cast by the afternoon sun draped the rooms in an eerie light. It was abnormal.

After he toed off his boots by the door and rid himself of his jacket, he padded through the house in socked feet on cherry wood floors through the kitchen and living room, the great room with its piano for when Roderich came over and the ceiling high window next to the fireplace, then up the stairs. The bedrooms, only one of which, being Feliciano's, Ludwig had ever been in. He knew there was an art room, and after checking there with still no sign of Feliciano, he kept milling through all the doors until he made it to the end of the hall, the only obscure door that Feliciano had insisted on painting red so it stood out.

It was there that he found him, curled into nothingness on the floor, his body trembling with such intense sobs that Ludwig thought he would die if he didn't breathe. He was terrified for the other, not used to seeing such a sunny spirit crushed to such a degree, and not to mention that it was his doing.

When he tried to speak, he was almost afraid of the response.

"Feli, I am so-"

And the laughing began. The uncharacteristically and out of place giggling tore through the stark silence like a serial killer who truly enjoyed what they did, who saw it as sport. When Feliciano spoke, it was with such a deep resentfulness that Ludwig would have deemed it worse than Lovino. Because this was different. This was past sanity.

"I knew. They'd all told me, countless times, relentlessly told me, so much. They tried warning me, but I didn't want to listen. I wanted Germany. Big, kind, strong, trustworthy _Germany_ to be with me because I did not see you as an asset from which I could gain something but a friend and an ally and the one whom I love but that was all I was. I was a gain. A power trip. Something to make strong then used as a weapon and a toy but _Ludwig_,"

The way he spat Ludwig's name made him cringe, like acid were being thrown at him from the once sweet mouth of Feliciano Vargas.

"I am no toy. I may be a nation but I am a person as well and you underestimate my intelligence only because I choose to see the more important things in life over war and killing and malice and hate but never will I trust again. The dam has broken Ludwig and how does it feel to be the last gallon to tip the scales!?"

And suddenly he was there, standing so close that the boy's breath was assaulting Ludwig's nostrils with intent, his hand finding purchase around the muscular forearm with a vice grip. When Ludwig looked into the once glowing honey brown eyes they peered back at him darkly, sadly, forlornly.

"You hate me, Ludwig. You hate all that I am. You admitted it, not too long ago did you not?"

And then he was across the room, his hand in the bedside drawer that had only ever held a pad of paper and some aspirin but when Feliciano pulled a handgun out from the cheap bedside table, Ludwig was afraid.

"Feliciano, I do not hate you! I never have and I never will. I did not mean those things that I said, please!"

"You were the only one who ever took care of me. When everyone else knew how weak I was and how sad of an excuse I was they turned me away but along came Germany who took me in and treated me as a friend and who made me fall so hard that I couldn't keep up so I played dumb. I played dumb and even though I did that I was never stupid! I don't want to fight . . . I never wanted to fight. I wanted to live with Ludwig and Kiku and Lovino and Antonio and be happy and not have to watch our people die in our name. But you ruined it. Because you are a liar Ludwig."

Ludwig's world stopped. It did. It seemed like years passed as Feliciano stumbled back to sit against the wall and held the gun to his head with a steady hand. He did not tremble, he did not cry, he did not flinch when the cold metal touched his skin.

"I've always known that I was worthless, really."

And it was over.

There was no more sun. There was no more warmth or Italian songs in the breeze in the summertime. There were no more laughter and gelato, no more tomato sauce and mornings together. There would be no more scents of Earth and lavender and tomatoes and fresh bread, or breath that smelled of garlic but in the good way. There would be no more smiles or glances or a tiny hand in his own, no more honey hair in his face. No more. Never again.

And as he screamed, and screamed, and sobbed, looking over to the one who he could never hold again, the one whom he would never kiss, who he would never tell what he couldn't before, he felt his own dam break. But his didn't come as violently. It was numbing. It was ice. It was filling him, shocking him.

He tore himself away, running, and stumbled down the stairs, the only coat he grabbed being Feliciano's, and ripped the door open, his breath coming harder and harder and his vision blurring with another onslaught of tears as Lovino ran past him at the sight of his appearance.

Ludwig didn't really register the rest, as Antonio hurriedly climbed out of the driver's seat of his car with a panic stricken look upon his face, and tried so hard to talk to Ludwig. But he couldn't. All he could do was scream and wander and grab at the locks of blond hair that fell to his forehead, begging for himself to wake up.

It was just a dream.

It was just a nightmare.

He would wake up, and Feliciano would be there in his bed, snoring and murmuring about pasta and waking up to card his slender fingers through Ludwig's un-gelled hair. Feli always loved it that way.

But when he looked back up to see Lovino walking numbly from the front door, he knew it was all too real. Real. So many things, gone. So many possibilities ruined because he was stupid and selfish and he would never forgive himself.

He did not speak. Not to Lovino when he knelt in front of him in the driveway to beg him to tell him what happened. Not to Antonio, who, as he held the sobbing Lovino to his chest, asked if he needed an ambulance. Not one word. There was nothing to say. There would never be anything to say.

Never again.

Years later, Ludwig still visited that marble stone that stood sturdy and beautiful at the top of the hill behind his house, because that was where Ludwig would be buried when he died. With Feli. Always with Feli.

And when he left the daisies and wildflowers on the headstone, all picked from the field that was Feliciano's favorite, he would speak to him. He would speak of meaningful things, of not so meaningful things, of his sadness, of his joy, of his emptiness. He would tell Feliciano how much he missed him.

He would tell Feliciano how, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the pasta sauce right, and that he couldn't find that lavender soap anywhere, where did he get it? He would tell him how he'd burnt the bread again and how his garden just wouldn't grow because Feliciano was the sunshine and without him it was all dead. It was all dead. Ludwig was all dead.

He would say, 'I never got to say I love you and I bet your lips were soft like the way you called me bello or Tesoro, and I bet you would have liked the cake I made you for your birthday this year.' And then he would look up and curse the sun in the sky because it was not the real sun and it could never replace his sunshine.

Ludwig will always remember that, until he grows feeble and old and frail. Until he himself dies, and even then, he had a wonderful feeling of elation that when that day comes, he will meet him again, and tell him all the things that he couldn't.

Feliciano.


End file.
